8 ms·

> you are on hook for thousands of dollars even in the event that you are never tried or you are tried and found not guilty. You're on the hook for thousands o

> you are on hook for thousands of dollars even in the event that you are never tried or you are tried and found not guilty. You're on the hook for thousands of dollars even if you're never charged! Don't forget about the bail loan firms. Say, you're arrested and kept on a $20K bail. Even if you have the money in the bank, the only way to pay is by cash or money order. They won't accept personal check, they won't accept wire transfer, they won't accept nothing. You can't buy a money order from your cell. But they will helpfully refer you to a bail loan firm. They take away your phone, so you won't be shopping around much - their referral is all you have. And, unless you happen to have a suitcase full of cash with you, this is the only practical way to pay. Bail loan firms charge 10-15% of the bond, which, of course, they get to keep even if you show up in court as promised, regardless of whether you're found guilty or even charged with anything. This is such a profitable scam those firms will do anything to keep the current system in place. US justice system is probably more corrupt than some African countries, yet nobody is even talking about it.

derefr 5y ago
Is there a justice system anywhere in the world that actually does state-driven financial punishment on police to disincentivize false arrest? (E.g. all costs stemming from a false arrest being taken as treble damages from the department and awarded to the innocent accused, automatically, without the accused having to bother to sue?)
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  I suppose the difference is that in most other places in the world there would be no 'costs stemming from a false arrest' (I mean direct costs if you exclude things like the opportunity cost of lost time, and the damages/stress inflicted, etc).
  - johannes1234321 5y ago
    In Germany you are compensated for a wrong arrest. (Base rate is 25€ per day, which isn't much, but you can claim additional reimbursements with some paperwork and help from your (state paid) lawyer)
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  that would punish justice systems for making mistakes, which if they are an honest system they are already being punished for because of course a mistake is the system being inefficient. The purpose of awarding damages for false arrests is to punish malicious false arrests, or mistakes so egregious that we might as well consider them malicious, which some systems are more prone to than others.
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    As the justice system does have a lot of power - like arresting people - of course mistakes should be punished to some extend. And those people making those mistakes, usually have little concerns over the efficiency of the justice system.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      fiat rules that do not handle things on a case by case basis are particularly prone to perverse incentives.
- chx 5y ago
  There's no need for that when no one profits from a false arrest or false conviction. Civil asset forfeiture, bail loan firms, for profit prisons, breathtakingly expensive phone calls and all sorts of other scams are pretty much unheard of anywhere else and we honestly can believe what we are reading when we see these .
  - throw170521 5y ago
    Add mugshot sites recently discussed on HN to the list [1]. Who would have guessed shit like this can even exist? All those scams have to stop being dirty little secrets, there needs to be public outrage built around it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153800
  - Jiejeing 5y ago
    > There's no need for that when no one profits from a false arrest or false conviction. You underestimate the power of racism, homophobia and other things that drive some people, plus the feeling of having power over other people (and also, if a crime has been committed, the drive to make culprits out of innocents if police cannot find the real ones). Sure, the US has some amazingly broken systems that seem to foster endemic corruption, but even without them it’s not enough to guarantee that a police force behaves appropriately (we just had a case in france where at least two people have done 1.5 years and 4 years in detention based on a made-up testimony forced by police officers caught on video, and the police unions and the far-right are still screaming that justice is too lenient and the liberation is a scandal).
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      I don’t understand how this would work. Is the idea that racists know about these scams and vote to protect them legally? I didn’t know about these and I consider myself pretty informed, while I (unsurprisingly) haven’t met any informed racists. No doubt racism is real (especially in the criminal justice system), but it feels like Occam’s Razor would favor the “incentives” argument here.
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  Putting it on the officers is bad. They then tend to lean back and not take the personal risk. You need clear guidance about when they have to arrest somebody and when not. And only secondary a system where abuse can be punished.
  - greedo 5y ago
    Personal risk? Law enforcement in the US is not as dangerous an occupation as their unions would like you to believe. And it's not like police are preventing crime. They're like janitor who come along after the crime has been committed.
- jopsen 5y ago
  > ...state-driven financial punishment on police... You need to stop thinking that punishment works. Punishing people, like with dogs, rarely serves any purpose beyond "feeling of justice". Such "feelings of justice" don't tend to make the world a better place. I'm no expert, but if you remove perverse incentives and train officers to resolve conflicts without violence, then you'll probably get very far. Prosecuting police officers is a difficult way to change policing culture.
  - banannaise 5y ago
    If punishment doesn't work (and it doesn't) then we don't need prisons and jails as they currently exist, nor do we need police as they currently exist. There's no point to improving the police. Get rid of the punishment angle to policing, then give all the non-punishment jobs that police do to people who are far, far more qualified to handle them than the police are. Then you have essentially no police, so there's no need to improve them.
rapsey 5y ago
Looking at it from the outside (Europe) I am always surprised when some investigation occurs after some documentary or other media event instead of when the crime occurred (Cosby, R Kelly).
- CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
  Same thing happens in Europe too. Two cases I can think of in my country are Jonathan Jacob and Jozef Chovanec. Both investigations only started rolling when someone leaked recordings of what happened in their cells to the media. The government has very few incentives to investigate their own, that's why media is an invaluable part of democracy.
  - carschno 5y ago
    That is also why media is one of the first targets of most "electoral" autocracies. This can be seen in European countries like Hungary and Turkey where independent media has more or less disappeared, and they are massively attacked by other governments like Poland. Furthermore, that is why public broadcasting is a primary target of populist/far-right campaigns in most other countries too: their propaganda focuses on the unpopular "unjustified" broadcast fees, while they really want to get rid of these largely independent stations, and replace them with commercial competitors that are controlled by media moguls instead of democratic structures.
  - yreg 5y ago
    I'm always sad to see the negative stand against all the media on forums like here or reddit. From my central European perspective, (serious) media are so incredibly important for our society and democracy. I understand that the USA has somewhat more independent and strong public institutions than us and can rely on them, but still.
    - AuthorizedCust 5y ago
      As an American, I say that the media IS important. That’s why its all too frequent bias and sloppiness is so problematic. Where I live, false or exaggerated headlines are the norm. Scary headlines are lucrative! If we can’t depend on the media to do its job right, then who does that function?
vagrantJin 5y ago
> US justice system is probably more corrupt than some African countries... Nice to know African countries are a symbol and the pinnacle of dysfunction and corruption. That's something at least.
- kennyadam 5y ago
  It's a heck of a statement isn't it! "Wow, the USA is probably worse than black people countries." Awful.
  - DayDollar 5y ago
    Have you been there? Its just true. They keep you waiting for hours if you dont bribe. And those backwater control posts are just living of the land like 30 year war mercenaries. Sorry if reality is offensive.
  - f1refly 5y ago
    You might want to consider that lots african governments and legal cultures are awful, completely disconnected from the colour of their citizens skin!
- onion2k 5y ago
  There are literal league tables of corruption, and many African countries do not do well on them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index). It's not a simple case of tracking corruption either - the CPI is sometimes used to determine whether or not someone has broken international law trading with a country's government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act).
comboy 5y ago
> Unless you happen to have a suitcase full of cash with you That would definitely not help you. It's a mess on many many levels.
gameswithgo 5y ago
we just talked about it. saw it in the news a few days back too
Ichthypresbyter 5y ago
IIRC the US is one of only two countries where it is legal to take money to post bail for someone you don't know (the other one is the Philippines).
behringer 5y ago
Sorry. If you have a briefcase full of cash that is definately going to be confiscated and you'll have to sue to try to get it back.
dangoor 5y ago
FWIW, I wouldn't say that nobody is talking about it. In the county where I live, the new county prosecutor moved to eliminate cash bail on his first day in office: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/01/washtenaw-county-prosecutor-rolls-out-new-policy-to-end-use-of-cash-bail.html https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/01/washtenaw-count...
yonaguska 5y ago
> And, unless you happen to have a suitcase full of cash with you Oh, and if you are carrying a suitcase full of cash, expect it to be seized under asset forfeiture laws. Apparently carrying large sums of cash is evidence of criminality.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > Apparently carrying large sums of cash is evidence of criminality. It's not even large sums of cash, people have had what amounts to a part-time paycheck at minimum wage seized because they made the mistake of having it on their person while they drove a car.
airhead969 5y ago
The US is the most corrupt because it has the high incarceration rate on the planet except Seychelles. Prisoners are almost exclusively men who are minorities or poor. Like the Reagans, the greater society doesn't care about anything unless it affects them. So, they're perfectly fine with degrading, exploitative warehousing and slavery of humans for profit.
bluishgreen 5y ago
And you felt the need to create a throwaway account, which already speaks enough about the state of affairs in the US.
machello13 5y ago
> US justice system is probably more corrupt than some African countries, yet nobody is even talking about it. Plenty of people talk about this. It's a lack of listening that's the problem.
devwastaken 5y ago
Also bail firms act as their own personal police. Old law dictates that the bail firm can seize you wherever you're at if you don't show up. So instead of actual police you get unidentified guys with guns and tasers breaking down doors without a warrent. Even if it's not your place.

derefr 5y ago

Is there a justice system anywhere in the world that actually does state-driven financial punishment on police to disincentivize false arrest? (E.g. all costs stemming from a false arrest being taken as treble damages from the department and awarded to the innocent accused, automatically, without the accused having to bother to sue?)

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
I suppose the difference is that in most other places in the world there would be no 'costs stemming from a false arrest' (I mean direct costs if you exclude things like the opportunity cost of lost time, and the damages/stress inflicted, etc).
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  In Germany you are compensated for a wrong arrest. (Base rate is 25€ per day, which isn't much, but you can claim additional reimbursements with some paperwork and help from your (state paid) lawyer)
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
that would punish justice systems for making mistakes, which if they are an honest system they are already being punished for because of course a mistake is the system being inefficient. The purpose of awarding damages for false arrests is to punish malicious false arrests, or mistakes so egregious that we might as well consider them malicious, which some systems are more prone to than others.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  As the justice system does have a lot of power - like arresting people - of course mistakes should be punished to some extend. And those people making those mistakes, usually have little concerns over the efficiency of the justice system.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    fiat rules that do not handle things on a case by case basis are particularly prone to perverse incentives.
chx 5y ago
There's no need for that when no one profits from a false arrest or false conviction. Civil asset forfeiture, bail loan firms, for profit prisons, breathtakingly expensive phone calls and all sorts of other scams are pretty much unheard of anywhere else and we honestly can believe what we are reading when we see these .
- throw170521 5y ago
  Add mugshot sites recently discussed on HN to the list [1]. Who would have guessed shit like this can even exist? All those scams have to stop being dirty little secrets, there needs to be public outrage built around it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153800
- Jiejeing 5y ago
  > There's no need for that when no one profits from a false arrest or false conviction. You underestimate the power of racism, homophobia and other things that drive some people, plus the feeling of having power over other people (and also, if a crime has been committed, the drive to make culprits out of innocents if police cannot find the real ones). Sure, the US has some amazingly broken systems that seem to foster endemic corruption, but even without them it’s not enough to guarantee that a police force behaves appropriately (we just had a case in france where at least two people have done 1.5 years and 4 years in detention based on a made-up testimony forced by police officers caught on video, and the police unions and the far-right are still screaming that justice is too lenient and the liberation is a scandal).
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    I don’t understand how this would work. Is the idea that racists know about these scams and vote to protect them legally? I didn’t know about these and I consider myself pretty informed, while I (unsurprisingly) haven’t met any informed racists. No doubt racism is real (especially in the criminal justice system), but it feels like Occam’s Razor would favor the “incentives” argument here.
johannes1234321 5y ago
Putting it on the officers is bad. They then tend to lean back and not take the personal risk. You need clear guidance about when they have to arrest somebody and when not. And only secondary a system where abuse can be punished.
- greedo 5y ago
  Personal risk? Law enforcement in the US is not as dangerous an occupation as their unions would like you to believe. And it's not like police are preventing crime. They're like janitor who come along after the crime has been committed.
jopsen 5y ago
> ...state-driven financial punishment on police... You need to stop thinking that punishment works. Punishing people, like with dogs, rarely serves any purpose beyond "feeling of justice". Such "feelings of justice" don't tend to make the world a better place. I'm no expert, but if you remove perverse incentives and train officers to resolve conflicts without violence, then you'll probably get very far. Prosecuting police officers is a difficult way to change policing culture.
- banannaise 5y ago
  If punishment doesn't work (and it doesn't) then we don't need prisons and jails as they currently exist, nor do we need police as they currently exist. There's no point to improving the police. Get rid of the punishment angle to policing, then give all the non-punishment jobs that police do to people who are far, far more qualified to handle them than the police are. Then you have essentially no police, so there's no need to improve them.

rapsey 5y ago

Looking at it from the outside (Europe) I am always surprised when some investigation occurs after some documentary or other media event instead of when the crime occurred (Cosby, R Kelly).

CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
Same thing happens in Europe too. Two cases I can think of in my country are Jonathan Jacob and Jozef Chovanec. Both investigations only started rolling when someone leaked recordings of what happened in their cells to the media. The government has very few incentives to investigate their own, that's why media is an invaluable part of democracy.
- carschno 5y ago
  That is also why media is one of the first targets of most "electoral" autocracies. This can be seen in European countries like Hungary and Turkey where independent media has more or less disappeared, and they are massively attacked by other governments like Poland. Furthermore, that is why public broadcasting is a primary target of populist/far-right campaigns in most other countries too: their propaganda focuses on the unpopular "unjustified" broadcast fees, while they really want to get rid of these largely independent stations, and replace them with commercial competitors that are controlled by media moguls instead of democratic structures.
- yreg 5y ago
  I'm always sad to see the negative stand against all the media on forums like here or reddit. From my central European perspective, (serious) media are so incredibly important for our society and democracy. I understand that the USA has somewhat more independent and strong public institutions than us and can rely on them, but still.
  - AuthorizedCust 5y ago
    As an American, I say that the media IS important. That’s why its all too frequent bias and sloppiness is so problematic. Where I live, false or exaggerated headlines are the norm. Scary headlines are lucrative! If we can’t depend on the media to do its job right, then who does that function?

vagrantJin 5y ago

> US justice system is probably more corrupt than some African countries... Nice to know African countries are a symbol and the pinnacle of dysfunction and corruption. That's something at least.

kennyadam 5y ago
It's a heck of a statement isn't it! "Wow, the USA is probably worse than black people countries." Awful.
- DayDollar 5y ago
  Have you been there? Its just true. They keep you waiting for hours if you dont bribe. And those backwater control posts are just living of the land like 30 year war mercenaries. Sorry if reality is offensive.
- f1refly 5y ago
  You might want to consider that lots african governments and legal cultures are awful, completely disconnected from the colour of their citizens skin!
onion2k 5y ago
There are literal league tables of corruption, and many African countries do not do well on them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index). It's not a simple case of tracking corruption either - the CPI is sometimes used to determine whether or not someone has broken international law trading with a country's government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act).

comboy 5y ago

> Unless you happen to have a suitcase full of cash with you That would definitely not help you. It's a mess on many many levels.

gameswithgo 5y ago

we just talked about it. saw it in the news a few days back too

Ichthypresbyter 5y ago

IIRC the US is one of only two countries where it is legal to take money to post bail for someone you don't know (the other one is the Philippines).

behringer 5y ago

Sorry. If you have a briefcase full of cash that is definately going to be confiscated and you'll have to sue to try to get it back.

dangoor 5y ago

FWIW, I wouldn't say that nobody is talking about it. In the county where I live, the new county prosecutor moved to eliminate cash bail on his first day in office: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/01/washtenaw-county-prosecutor-rolls-out-new-policy-to-end-use-of-cash-bail.html https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/01/washtenaw-count...

yonaguska 5y ago

> And, unless you happen to have a suitcase full of cash with you Oh, and if you are carrying a suitcase full of cash, expect it to be seized under asset forfeiture laws. Apparently carrying large sums of cash is evidence of criminality.

heavyset_go 5y ago
> Apparently carrying large sums of cash is evidence of criminality. It's not even large sums of cash, people have had what amounts to a part-time paycheck at minimum wage seized because they made the mistake of having it on their person while they drove a car.

airhead969 5y ago

The US is the most corrupt because it has the high incarceration rate on the planet except Seychelles. Prisoners are almost exclusively men who are minorities or poor. Like the Reagans, the greater society doesn't care about anything unless it affects them. So, they're perfectly fine with degrading, exploitative warehousing and slavery of humans for profit.

bluishgreen 5y ago

And you felt the need to create a throwaway account, which already speaks enough about the state of affairs in the US.

machello13 5y ago

> US justice system is probably more corrupt than some African countries, yet nobody is even talking about it. Plenty of people talk about this. It's a lack of listening that's the problem.

devwastaken 5y ago

Also bail firms act as their own personal police. Old law dictates that the bail firm can seize you wherever you're at if you don't show up. So instead of actual police you get unidentified guys with guns and tasers breaking down doors without a warrent. Even if it's not your place.